EDC 484 Class Notes - Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Chapter 7 - Planning for Inquiry

Chapter 7 - Planning for Inquiry

Read your portion of this chapter, and write a sufficient summary to answer the questions:

• What are the main ideas of this passage?
• How can we apply these ideas to our teaching now?

Questions to Consider

( #1)

Lesson Characterisitics

Inquiry based lessons should be included to allow for the construction of theories important from the class, rather than memorization of facts. These lessons should be developmentally appropriate to give all students an opportunity to learn. This also means that reading assignments should not be above grade level, and success should not depend on reading ability. These inquiry based lessons should provoke interest and curiosity to a wide range of students to challange them with flexibility for the different learning abilities in the class. Readings should come after the exploration through inquiry and such lessons to give students an equal opportunity. Once initial understandings have been obtained through firsthand experiece, readings, slides, videos, etc. can be used to expand students understanding, eliminate misconceptions, and closing gaps.

Student Behaviors ( #2)

• Class conclusions should be based on data, if too much inconsistency exists then an experiment may be conducted a second time
• Students should be thinking like scientists and experimenting like scientists

Questioning Techniques (#3)

• Questioning is a key component when planning for inquiry. First teachers should try to pose the majority of open-ended or evaluative qustions such as "what have you observed or what are some possible causes?"
• If you ask more direct questions like "Which liquid evaporated first" which will render one direct response then your resonses will elicit detail-centered responses which can diverge a student from seeing a bigger picture.
• Secondly, when asking questions, you should pose a questions and then ask for student responses and not pick an individual student to answer a posed question to keep students on their toes per say and thinking about the topic of discussion.
• Most importantly, teachers should wait at least 5 seconds for a student response. Longer "wait time" will elecit a more well thought out response. Don't forget, when students start responding, accept all answers right or wrong as this will open up the floor for future discussion based on wrong responses. Embrace that the students are giving it a shot by answering these questions.
• Lastly, think about how you react to students asking questions. Answer a question with a question. Hold back and do not always tell students answers right away! Ask leading questions that will allow students to further investigate, think and discuss.
• You can do it! Science is all about exploring!!!!!

Preparing Good Lesson Plans(#4)

Steps to Follow - Backward Design

1. Carefully review standards
2.Select apporpriate unit objectives and how they will be assessed.

• a. Objectives should point the way-but not provide answers.
• b. Should not include terms that have not been introduced.
• c. Should focus on what students should learn to do.

3. Plan learning experiences and instruction.around objectivies and learning goals.

Descriptive Learning Cycles - Definition(#5)

• Descriptive Learning Cycles are a good way to use inquiry as a way to introduce a concept. There are 3 main components: 1. Exploration, 2. Term Introduction, and 3. Concept application. Before these steps occur, teachers must plan by choosing concepts, and phenomenons incorporating them. Then students explore these phenomena( Step 1) and try to explain them and recognize patterns. The students provide data and explanations of the pattern they find, and the teacher then provides a term to label the pattern(Step 2). Finally, other phenomena and concepts are discussed applying the same concepts(Step 3).
• This is a great way to introduce material because it sells it to the kids. When the kids come up with the concept through thier own explanation they believe it and aren't just taking your word for it. You can apply the concept they learned to explain thier phenomena by relating it to situations more familiar to their own lives.

Descriptive Learning Cycles - Planning

Empirical Abductive Learning Cycles - Explanation (#6)

• Students test out the effects of different temps, chemicals, environments on the decomposition of bread *Exploration of empircal world*
• Students gather results and compile class list
• Results are that increased water and heat speed up decomp.
• When asked what actually causes decompostion students automatically say water and heat
• Teacher continues questioning "What caused the bad odor? What is the fuzzy black stuff on the bread?"
• Considering these questions students generate a hypothesis that mold and bacteria caused the decomp.
• Students look back at results to see if hypothesis works *Process called abduction*
• Teacher then introduces vocabulary that applies *Term introduction*
• Students continue exploring possible other causes of biological decomp. *Concept Application*

Empirical Abductive Learning Cycles - Planning

• Prior to cycle- Teacher selects concepts to be taught
  • Teacher selects phenomenon which will incorporate the concepts
• Exploration: Students and teachers raise question
• Students gather data to answer question
• Class set of data displayed
• Question answered and causal question asked
• Hypothesis are created
• Term Introduction:
• Concept application:

Hypothetical-Predictive Learning Cycles - Explanation (#7)

• Initially raises one or more casual questions to which students generate ALTERNATIVE hypotheses.
• In-class time is devoted to explicitly designing and conducting tests of their hypotheses by creating a couple of predictions
• After completing the tests, students will find that some of the hypotheses were rejected, retained and maybe even new ones were created.
• Require students to more than describe phenomena-->they must explain themselves/provide evidence
• Provides window into connecting content concepts

Hypothetical-Predictive Learning Cycles - Planning

>teacher selects concept
>teacher selects phenomena/pattern
>students explore phenomena-->questioning
>design exploration
>test hypotheses
>compare/analyze data-->conclusions
>additional phenomena discussed with same concept

Components of Good Lesson Plans

(#8)

1. Lesson Synopsis

• a brief overview of the lesson's objectives, new concepts, and activities

2. Background Information

• includes background knowledge that is needed

• possible misconceptions are addressed

3. Advanced Preparation

(#9)

• This section reminds us what needs to be done before the lesson.

• What materials do you need and how they are distributed

e.g skull lab requires that you put a specimen at each of the 15 numbered stations

4. Engagement Strategies

Steps to create engagement

• Get students attention. (Are they looking/listening to you?)

• Signal their attention if necessary

• Review prior lesson. "Last time we talked about....." Ask a question getting them to think about todays lesson. (Last time we obtained evidence of species change across time - How does this change take place? How do species change?"

• Don't tell students what they are expected to learn, rather have some short remarks (no more than 5 minutes) giving them enough information to investigate the materials that they are given and answer the questions that you are asking. Their investigation is the hook.

• The purpose of inquiry is to bridge what they learned in previous lessons to the current lesson.

5. Exploration Strategies

(#10)

• Let students inquire in different directions based on their own interests
• Challenge students
• Perhaps conduct additional experiments
• Reemphasize the need to e=test alternative explanations, generate new ones
• Let students test all possible explanations, instead of simply saying it is correct or incorrect

*LET STUDENTS INVESTIGATE, AS LONG AS THEY ARE MAKING PROGRESS!!!

6. Term Introduction Strategies

(#11)Ideas must come first, terms second.
Use data to explain terms
Students can easily link new terms to ideas that have been previously introduced to them.

7. Concept Application Strategies

(#12)

• Concept application is taking a concept that they students have already become familiar with and applying it to a new context in order to solidify the principle

• The example that was given was the air pressure concept that the students have already become familiar with and applying it to the kinetic-molecular theory in the candle burning lesson.

8. Assessing Student Understanding

(#13)

• Blooms Taxonomy Levels - Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation
• Although some "higher level" items are more difficult to write and more difficult to write and more difficult for students to respond to they MUST become part of your assessment plan for students to take inquiry seriously and for your lessons to provoke meaningful learning and continued intellecutal development